


Excalibur

by Racethewind_10



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-07
Updated: 2014-07-07
Packaged: 2018-02-07 22:33:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1916433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Racethewind_10/pseuds/Racethewind_10
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She rests her forehead against Regina’s and closes her eyes, letting her hands drop to those still clutched around Excalibur’s blade where the vile thing keeps pulling, seeking to destroy a Queen. Emma covers the blood soaked knuckles with her palm but doesn’t squeeze. She can’t bear to add any more pain to what Regina already suffers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Excalibur

**Author's Note:**

> This is Kayryn's fault, she keeps making manips.

Inspired by [this gorgeous manip](http://kayryn.tumblr.com/post/90956434247/i-didnt-ask-for-this-regina-mills-if-you-like)

* * *

 

Emma watches in horror as blood stains the silvery blade. Crimson rivulets slide almost gracefully down the back of Regina’s hand, vivid against the whiteness of her knuckles as it follows the lines of bones to curl around the frozen woman’s slender wrist in a sickening caress.

Everything in Emma wants to reach out and stop this but the spell still holds them all strong. She and Henry, Snow and Charming are as immobile as statues and Emma rails against it, screaming silently in her mind as she tries - futilely, but when has that ever stopped Emma from struggling - to get to the other woman. 

A part of Emma wonders if even now it is too late.

Regina’s eyes are utterly black - not the beautiful darkness of pupils blown wide with desire but wholly, completely black. Every last sliver of warm brown eclipsed by something cold and alien. Her body is shaking and Emma watches the magic in the sword burrowing its way into Regina's blood, light like acid leaving pain and weakness in its wake.

"You see," Merlin’s too-smooth voice snakes around Emma’s ears and makes her stomach roll with nausea.  She wants to kill him.   "Already she succumbs to its power.  You were never a worthy opponent, _You Majesty_." The words are mocking, almost sing-song and not for the first time that night, Emma is reminded just how utterly insane Merlin is.  She’s never reading another fucking book about King Arthur again.

None of that matters though. Not if she can’t break through this holding spell and get to Regina. Not if Regina can’t stop the magic of Excalibur from taking her over and destroying her.  Emma can feel more than see Henry on her left, his eyes - so like hers - filled with tears and his face pale and scared.  Emma spares a not-quite-prayer that maybe  _this_  will be the last time he has to watch his mother throw herself into danger to protect him, to protect all of them.

 She knows even as she thinks it they probably aren’t that lucky. 

The blood is dripping onto the stone floor now with soft little plops, droplets combining to form a river as the sword cuts deeper into Regina’s physical flesh even as its magic reaches for her mind.  Blood falls differently than water and the sound is softer somehow, almost gentle. Emma wants to be sick. Tears of helplessness prick at her own eyes as she throws herself again and again against the magic holding her. 

Merlin just laughs at her attempts and fuck but it reminds Emma of Gold, that voice high and triumphant and unnaturally young.

"It won’t be long now," he snickers, and the sound echoes in the high chamber and sick, horrible realization claws at Emma. She is going to watch Regina die right here. Their  _son_  is going to be forced to watch his mother fall. 

 _No_.

It isn’t a word, it’s a single note of refusal, the toll of a great bell that rings in her mind, drowning everything out. Emma can’t close her eyes for more than an instant – some twisted part of Merlin’s spell meant to force them watch – but she learned long ago to retreat into her mind; prison and then Regina’s lessons in magic forcing the discipline on her. She retreats now, drawing herself inward and down, down, down. Down into the center of herself where her heart beats, glowing bright red, beating steadily, and every flare seems to sound out Regina’s name. 

Deeper still, until the sounds and the emotions and the harsh buzzing of Merlin’s magic across her skin are all gone, Emma falls. Until she finds it.  Her magic. Its small here, scared and cowering, but it’s enough. 

It _has_ to be.

Emma wraps her mental ‘hands’ around the magic, coaxing it back to life with emotion that isn’t fear. It’s both easier and harder these days. She has so much joy in her life, but she has so, so much to lose.  

She can’t banish that knowledge; that clawing terror that whispers of loss and aching loneliness, but she _can_ push it aside. She can cling to hope and think of family and faith and the good guys winning and there are enough – just enough – marks in that ‘win’ category to give Emma the strength she needs.

In the warm silence of her own mind, she remembers. 

Remembers the feeling of Henry’s arms around her and the flash of his smile as he heads out the door to school; the way he rolls his eyes but never tells his mothers ‘no’ when they want to pick him up and drive him home. She remembers the sound of her boots on the front porch of the mansion that has become her _home_ ; remembers pushing the door open and walking inside to be greeted by the smell of lasagna cooking, the air rich and spicy and warm as it settles on her skin, chasing away the cold of a Storybrooke evening. 

She remembers the way Regina’s eyes look in the early morning light that spills through their curtains when Emma forgets to shut them all the way, deep mahogany transformed into something golden and glowing with an inner fire, like the stained glass windows Emma remembers from her few encounters with churches as a kid. She remembers the feel of soft lips pressed to hers and slender fingers in her hair. She remembers the way Regina’s body fits against her own in the darkest hours of night when it doesn’t matter who is sheltering whom, just that their arms are strong enough not to falter. 

Emma thinks about the fear and the joy that still battle in Regina’s eyes when Emma says ‘I love you’ and she understands in that moment, that fraction of a fraction of a second between heartbeats as she gathers her magic, that the fear had never been  _of_  Emma’s love, but terror that Regina wouldn’t be strong enough to protect it, to protect Emma and Henry. 

And perhaps that fear was grounded, Emma thinks, because she’s not sure Regina _is_  strong enough, but then, neither is she.

Their strength has never come from isolation, no matter how many times they have tried to cling to that belief, decades of betrayal and lies and broken promises like rubble in their hearts making them too crowded for anything else.

Until Henry

Until ‘ _together_.’

 ** _'I'm not strong enough_** _,_ ’ Emma hears like an echo and images of a mine and a trigger and too much magic flicker past her eyes. 

‘ ** _But maybe we are together_** ,’ her past self answers, and the last word tolls in her mind, growing louder and louder until it drowns out everything else.

The fear.

The darkness.

That choking grip of Merlin’s spell.

Emma’s magic flares, roaring to life like a wildfire driven by the wind and she wraps her hands around the hilt of power and surges upwards, cloaked in an armor made of a thousand moments that somehow all together spell ‘family’ and ‘love’ and ‘peace.’

Regina would probably tell her to be subtle and patient because Merlin’s spells are complex and he is so very powerful but Emma really doesn’t fucking care. She doesn’t have time for patience. That’s her _family_ he’s trying to kill.

She slams into the spell holding her, driving the blade of her power through the net of magic that buzzes and burns like a thousand angry bees. 

It’s like slamming into a brick wall. The shock reverberates through her entire body, physical and not, and if she could have opened her mouth, Emma would have screamed.

Pain, however, is something Emma has had many lessons in overcoming. From the hands of foster parents and bullies, to the agony of childbirth, to powers she had never imagined existed that tossed her between worlds like a ragdoll, pain is not a stranger to Emma. She keeps fighting, because walls have mortar and Emma feels  _something_  give. It’s small, but it’s there, and triumph floods through her as she raises the sword of her magic again, and drives it home. 

When the holding spell breaks it doesn’t just vanish it _explodes_ ; Emma throwing enough power behind her will to send light like shrapnel blasting through the entire cavern and where it lands it sears into Merlin’s magic…into the Wizard himself. 

Still struggling with the last remnants holding her feet to the floor, Emma watches in vicious satisfaction as a bolt of her magic slams into Merlin’s chest. It throws him backward and the skinny, filthy old mage goes down in a tangled mass of tattered robes and dirty hair. His cry of outrage is something Emma won’t forget for a long time. 

And then it doesn’t matter because her feet are free and she’s moving. Out of the corner of her eye Emma sees David draw his sword and Snow nock an arrow and both of them move toward where Merlin is thrashing with a giant sliver of glowing magic stuck in his chest like a shard of glass. 

Emma doesn’t care. She hopes he dies and can’t even feel guilty that a “Savior” shouldn’t think like that. Its where she and Regina have always understood each other. You take care of what’s yours first.

Emma and Henry run toward Regina and its only Emma’s grip on her son’s jacket that keeps him from slamming into his mom and wrapping his arms around her. “No, Henry, you can’t touch her yet or Excalibur will do…whatever the hell its doing to you too.” 

"But," 

“ _No_!” Emma nearly growls before taking a deep breath and pushing down the fear that rises so fast at the thought of losing him to the thing Regina is already fighting so hard. “She’s doing this to protect us, let’s not make it worse, okay?”  Henry nods but she can see the need, written as plainly across his face as she is sure it is on her own. 

The thing is, Emma has a painful intuition this isn’t one of those “just call Regina’s name and she’ll snap out of it” times. Which means…a quick glance shows that Merlin is no longer moving, his skin - what she can see of it - waxy and already bluish. Snow’s bow is lowered and she is walking toward them, the hard lines of her mother’s normally soft face evidence of her own fear. Emma takes another deep breath. No one is going to like this. 

"Mom, I need you to keep Henry back, I’m going to do something…" 

"Reckless," Snow finishes, but there is fondness and pride in the word, and maybe something that sounds a lot like resignation.

"Yeah," Emma shrugs. Snow just nods and looks to where David is moving toward them, his sword still at the ready and his eyes scanning the entire chamber. No one says, "it’s what you’d do for the person you love" because the words don’t need to be spoken. This is a familiar chapter in the story of all their lives now. 

"Mom," Henry starts but Emma just shakes her head. 

"This is what she trained me for, kid." It’s not, not really, but Emma figures she’s allowed this tiny lie, even if she can tell that it doesn’t slip past her son. He doesn’t look happy, but there’s still just enough childish faith left in the fact that she’s The Savior to let him step back and stand close to his grandmother.

Emma breathes out slowly, takes one last look at the empty eyes of the woman she loves, and reaches out to lay her hand over Regina’s where her fingers still grip the sword.

There is just enough time to register the hot, slick feel of Regina’s blood on her palm and then Excalibur reaches out like a viper and sinks its fangs into her and everything goes dark. 

 

* * *

 

Emma is walking through a lightning storm. 

Her feet carry her across a featureless plane, as dark and empty as the sky above, that stretches off in every direction as far as her ‘eye’ can see. There is light, of a sort, that kind of reminds Emma of parties when she was a teenager, when they turned off all the lights and passed around glow sticks and got drunk. There’s no real source, just the impression of a sickly yellow that somehow tells her brain just enough to make out the ‘ground’ from the ‘sky’.  The only other illumination is the lightning. 

The utterly _silent_ lightning.

Even when it strikes the ground a few yards from her there is no noise. Which is almost creepier than the lightning itself. Still, Emma recognizes the strikes for what they are - magical discharge. Concentrating, she makes a shield like Regina taught her; one that will both let the energy slide off her, and absorb some of it in a useful way.  Then because she’s paranoid, Emma puts another couple of shields below that one. 

Only then does she start walking. For a while there is nothing. No features, no sign that Regina is even in this same terrifyingly dark place. Nothing but the random lightning strikes and total, complete silence. Emma’s skin starts to crawl and her heart is making a slow and steady climb out of her chest and into her throat as she walks faster. How much time is passing outside, she wonders. How long can she stay here and not be lost for good. 

The silence has no answers. 

Panic starts to sink its fingers beneath her spine, burrowing under her ribs, and a lightning strike scores the ground just feet away from her. Emma jumps and swears. 

Her voice is loud, the shrill ‘fuck!’ echoing before dying away. Every muscle tensed and her heart pounding against her ribs like it wants to escape, Emma struggles to calm down. “Fuck,” she mutters again, but this time the sound is comforting. She has a voice here. She can still speak. On a plane governed by rules probably made up by that jackass Merlin, this fact is reassuring.  But Emma is still no closer to her goal.  She needs to find Regina and get out of here she needs…in the deafening silence, an idea that she is sure is _completely_ stupid – and therefore totally her style – occurs to her. 

"Regina?" Emma whispers, half in fear that it will work. When nothing happens immediately, she gathers herself, thinks of the woman she is here to save, and screams. " _REGINA_!" throwing the name from her like a lifeline cast onto the sea and concentrates.

She’s about to try again when there is a flicker on the horizon. It’s so small and vanishes so quickly it might be a trick of her imagination but Regina’s voice is in her memory, telling her that magic is emotion and to trust her instincts. 

Emma runs. 

She fixes the image of the woman she can no longer imagine her life without in her mind like magnetic north and turns herself into a compass needle.

Regina sitting behind her desk in the Mayor’s office like it’s her throne, her dark eyes shining with pleasure and her chin raised; every line in her body oozing confidence and challenge.

Regina smiling sleepily at her in their bed in the morning, her silky hair tousled and her lips so incredibly soft.

The water of their shower cascading over the flawless olive skin of Regina’s back while Emma follows its path with tender fingertips…

The flicker gets bigger, brighter and this time, Emma hears the rumble of distant thunder; a muted crack that she knows is lightning. She runs harder, and thinks of home and Love.

Emma thinks of resting her chin on Regina’s shoulder and pressing herself against the smaller woman’s back as she stands at the stove; the slight scoff of irritation she always receives, followed by the way Regina will always tip her head ever so slightly to let Emma’s lips find her throat, just another move in this game of push/pull between them that somehow means more than any conventional declaration or sappy gesture ever could.

Emma thinks about waking in the middle of the night, gasping for air that will never be enough to fill her lungs and struggling to get free of the covers that are trying to hold her down and she has to see, has to _know_ she’s not back in that basement…and Regina’s voice, soft and low and steady will cut through the terror.  Next comes the soft click of a lamp and warm light flooding their bedroom and Regina’s arms around her so very gently, fingers smoothing through her tangled blonde hair as she tells Emma over and over again that she’s safe. That nothing will hurt her.

Emma remembers the tears that gathered in dark eyes and the smile that was so slow to form, but so blinding the morning Emma told Regina she would never ask her to marry, that she could never ask Regina to bind herself like that to another person, but that she wanted to give the other woman a promise that she would never run again, that she would always belong to Regina.  Even in the unending darkness, the ring on Emma’s finger glints. Somewhere out there, its twin hangs on a delicate chain around Regina’s neck. In the distance, the thunder growls louder. 

Emma keeps running.

The transition is sudden but not, in the way only dreamscapes can make sense. 

Between one stride and the next the plane she races across changes and Emma nearly falls as she tries to stop.  She’s reached her destination. 

The crack of lightning assaults her ears and out of instinct Emma covers her head, sucking in charged air that scorches her throat and her lungs as she struggles to reinforce her shields. The dark ground is cracked and pitted, rubble strewn everywhere and some of it shines like obsidian.

And in the middle of it all, kneels Regina. 

Slumped, head bowed, her hands still wrapped around Excalibur, even here. In the harsh flashes of light Emma can see the blood that covers the kneeling woman’s hands and the scorch marks that run down the length of her sleeve. She’s battered and alone, but the glimmer of familiar purple magic still surrounds her and Emma knows she’s still fighting. 

There’s still hope. 

Emma takes a breath, trying not to wince at the way magic feels like its crawling inside her with each gasp of illusionary air into her lungs, and steps into the ring of lightning. She fixes her eyes on Regina’s form and never looks to the side, flinching but not faltering when she feels bolts of that harsh buzzing magic of Merlin’s slam into her shields.  A part of her - the part that responds to stress and near-death situations with sarcasm - thinks of Scotty and Star Trek and she has to bite her lip to stop the nearly hysterical bark of laughter that bubbles in her throat. 

Two more steps and she’s dropping onto her knees in front of Regina and the laughter dies unvoiced. Without hesitation Emma reaches out cups Regina’s face, bringing that beautiful, weary gaze up and almost crying with relief when she finds warm brown eyes staring back at her.  They are blood-shot and full of pain, but clear of alien magic and the recognition in them is one of the most beautiful things Emma's ever seen. 

Neither woman really notices when the lightning stops. 

Emma can see the struggle going on inside Regina, the hope and the fear playing out across her face. “I’m here Regina,” she says softly. “It’s real. Merlin is…dead, or something I’m honestly not sure but Henry’s okay. Mom and Dad are watching him. Now we just need to get you home.” 

The injured woman blinks and Emma tries not to look at the blood and the burned skin she can see just at the edge of her vision. None of this is real, at least…not yet. 

"I can’t," Regina replies, and her words are almost slurred, her voice cracked and broken and Emma knows without a doubt that it’s because she’s been screaming. "I’m not strong enough," she continues, and there is a weary, defeated smile on chapped lips. 

Someday soon, Emma knows they are going to have another talk about self-sacrifice _not_  being the only option, because the sight of resignation on Regina’s face, the bleakness in those striking dark eyes is the stuff of Emma’s nightmares and she is so, so tired of having more memories to add to those that already haunt her.

But they don’t have time for that right now, so Emma just leans in and presses her lips to Regina’s forehead, feeling the sickening buzz of Merlin’s magic pull aside like an oil slick, forced back by Emma’s own power and the strength of the connection between the Savior and the Evil Queen, between the two women who are Henry’s mothers, between two very damaged souls that somehow fit together so well.  

Magic is emotion, True Love is magic.

She rests her forehead against Regina’s and closes her eyes, letting her hands drop to those still clutched around Excalibur’s blade where the vile thing keeps pulling, seeking to destroy a Queen. Emma covers the blood soaked knuckles with her palm but doesn’t squeeze. She can’t bear to add any more pain to what Regina already suffers.

"I know," Emma whispers. "But we are strong enough together." This time there is no ‘maybe’.

This time she has enough faith for both of them. 

Emma breathes out, and sends her magic flowing through her hands, giving it to Regina, giving her the strength to fight back.

The sword resists; its magic twisting and writhing like a snake, seeking to bite and draw blood. It will not be deprived of the brightly burning life it seeks to devour easily.

Emma tilts her head and her lips capture Regina’s. “Together,” she whispers. 

Fraction by tiny, agonizing fraction, the fingers below hers begin to loosen…

 

* * *

 

When Emma wakes, its to a warm, yielding weight against her front and something hard and flat against her back, and a pounding headache that feels like she spent the entire night doing shots of cheap tequila. 

"Regina," she tries to say, her senses still scrambled and her body not responding to her commands. What actually comes out is some half mumbled "rrna" that makes her cough because her throat is so dry. Blessedly, someone presses a wet rag against her lips. "Suck on this," Snow, she recognizes  the voice, orders gently and Emma obeys, nearly moaning as the moisture coats her mouth. 

Another cool rag is dabbed gently at her forehead and Emma finally manages to win the battle with her eyelids. Snow’s face - weary and exasperated but still smiling - is the first thing she sees. 

The second is a head of dark hair resting on her chest. Which is when the rest of Emma’s brain wakes up enough to realize she and Regina are still wrapped around each other, lying stretched out on the dais where Regina stood while she fought with Excalibur.  Regina is in her arms, lying half atop of Emma and they’re covered in blankets. A quick look shows that someone has wrapped Regina’s hands in clean white bandages and the tension that tightened her muscles when Emma woke begins to fade as it sinks in that – for the moment at least – they are safe.  Regina’s cheeks are pale but her skin is warm and Emma can feel her breathing, chest pressing slowly and steadily against Emma’s own. 

"You wouldn’t let go of each other," Snow supplies softly and there is something incredibly gentle in her eyes that makes Emma feel too full. She looks away as Snow continues. "You were both glowing and we thought…Henry thought you shouldn’t be separated yet." 

It makes no sense, and yet at the same time it makes perfect sense so Emma just nods and shifts her grip, smoothing one hand up and down Regina’s spine.  The sleeping woman sighs softly but doesn’t move or wake and Emma takes it as a good sign.  She needs to heal. They both do. Craning her neck Emma can see Henry – clearly conked out – in his bedroll next to her father, who is sharpening his sword where it rests across his knees. There is something incredibly soothing about the soft sound of whetstone on metal and David’s blue eyes crinkle at the corners when he looks up and smiles gently at her.

"Merlin?" Emma asks after a moment. 

Snow’s expression shifts, all the softness falling away  as anger flickers through her eyes for a moment before her shoulders sag. “He…disintegrated. I can’t say I’m sorry.” 

Emma isn’t either. 

"And the sword?" 

Snow makes a “hell if I know” face. “I have no idea. One moment you and Regina were standing there with it still in her hands, the next there was a flash of…something like dark lightning and it was gone and you both were collapsing. You caught her and then just passed out.” 

Emma nods, the movement setting off a twinge in her neck. 

"You should get some more sleep," Snow offers, her fingers brushing Emma’s forehead in a gentle caress. Emma doesn’t bother arguing. She and Regina will have to be strong enough to try and open the seam to get out of this fucking realm, and given what they’ve all been through, it’s going to be dicey. But Emma can feel Regina’s magic inside the sleeping woman, warm and familiar and waiting, like a cat napping in the sun. Emma knows that if she were to reach out with a magical ‘hand’ that power would rise to her, greeting her and welcoming her. She doesn’t know how she knows this, but it doesn’t matter. It’s just one more way she and Regina are a part of each other and even though her body aches and she’s exhausted, it feels good.

It feels like home. 

Even here in this god-forsaken place, with Regina safe in her arms and her family around her, Emma feels at peace. For the moment anyway. She’s not going to forget Regina taking the fall for them yet again, and  even though this one goes in the ‘win’ category, it was too close. It’s also time they talked about teaching Henry some of the basics of magic because even if he doesn’t have it in his blood, their lives are too connected to that elemental power to ignore it. 

But all of that can wait. Now Emma hears Snow stand and walk toward David and she tightens her arms around the slender body in her arms, whispering “I love you,” softly before closing her eyes and letting go of consciousness.  Her last thought before welcome oblivion takes hold is that it will feel so damn good to sleep on an actual mattress again…

 

Fin

 


End file.
